Canete vs Genuino Ice

8/6/2019 Canete vs Genuino Ice

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THIRD DIVISION

[G.R. No. 154080, January 22, 2008]

NELSIE B. CAETE, RONA ANAS, MILAGROSA APUAN, ERLINDA AQUINO,GODOFREDO AQUINO, CORITA BARREDO, TESSIE BARREDO, JESUS BATRINA,

ALBERTO BUENAVENTURA, BONIFACIO BUENAVENTURA, EUSEBIO CAPIRAL, MARIOCAPIRAL, LOLITA CAPIRAL, ELENA CAPIRAL, LETICIA CAPIRAL, RENATO CAPIRAL,ELY CABANGON, ERWIN CATALUNA, JESSIE CONRADO, JOEL CONRADO, NARCISIO

CONRADO, RICARDO CALAMPIANO, ALUMNIO CORSANES, NILO COLATOY, MARJETODAYAN, HENRY DIAZ, SALVACION ESMANDE, REYNALDO FUENTEBELLA, GERRY

GEQUILLANA, DELSIE GARCIA, NERISSA GONZALES, VISITACION JUNSAY, ESTELAJOVEN, JOSE LANZUELA, MARLON MALANGAYON, RENATO MARCELO, ANITA

MARZONIA, MARCELINO MONTALBO, AMADO MULI, JR., LEONITA MULI, EDUARDOOLVIDO, ALMARIO PACON, ASUNCION PACON, SALVACION PAGAYUNAN, ESTER PANTALEON, SHERLITA RABE, ANITA REYES, MEDELYN RIOS, BERTITO RIVAS,

ENGRACIA RIVERA, GERALYN RIVERA, ARMANDO RIVERA, MA. MERCY SHERVA,ALEXANDER SANGALAN, ERNESTO SANTIAGO, JOY SANTIAGO, ELENA TALION, JOE

RANDY TRESVALLES, ELIAS VALENZUELA, GERRY VALENZUELA, LILIBETHVALENZUELA, JOSEPHINE VICTORINO, JOJO VICTORINO, MAXIMINO VICTORINO,

NOEL VICTORINO, REYNANTE VICTORINO, ROBERTO VICTORINO and JOVITOVILLAREAL, represented by NELSIE B. CAETE, Petitioners, vs. GENUINO ICE

COMPANY, INC., Respondent.

DECISION

YNARES-SATIAGO, J.:

This petition for review on certiorari seeks to set aside the Decision [1] of the Court of Appeals datedJanuary 9, 2002 in CA-G.R. SP No. 64337 entitled Genuino Ice Company, Inc. vs. Hon.Victorino P. Evangelista, Nelsie B. Caete, et al., and its Resolution [2] dated June 26, 2002,dismissing petitioners Second Amended Complaint in Civil Case No. Q-99-36483 filed inBranch 223 of the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City.

Records show that on January 11, 1999, petitioners filed a complaint for cancellation of title toproperty covered by Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) Nos. N-140441; [3] 14399; [4] RT-94384(292245); [5] RT-94794 (292246); [6] and 292247. [7] Petitioners alleged that said titles are spurious,fictitious and were issued under mysterious circumstances, considering that the holders thereof including their predecessors-in-interest were never in actual, adverse and physicalpossession of the property, rendering them ineligible to acquire title to the said property under theFriar Lands Act. [8] Petitioners also sought to nullify Original Certificate of Title (OCT) No. 614 fromwhich the foregoing titles sought to be cancelled originated or were derived.

Respondent Genuino Ice Co., Inc. filed a motion to dismiss [9] on the ground that the complaint

states no cause of action because petitioners are not real parties-in-interest; that no relief may begranted as a matter of law; and that petitioners failed to exhaust administrative remedies, but itwas denied by the trial court. Respondent moved for reconsideration but the same was denied.

On November 4, 1999, petitioners filed a Second Amended Complaint [10] which sought toannul, in addition to the titles already alleged in the original complaint, TCT Nos. 274095 and274096; [11] 274097 and 274098; [12] and 274099. [13]


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certificates of title and all transfer certificates of title derived therefrom;

(4) Declaring the plaintiffs as bona fide occupants of the property in litigation pursuant to theprovisions of the Friar Lands Act and other existing laws. [14]

Respondent moved to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint on the following grounds:a) The complaint states no cause of action because: (1) on the allegations alone, plaintiffs

(petitioners) are not real parties in interest who may bring suit to cancel defendants (includingrespondent) titles; (2) based on the allegations and prayer of the complaint, no relief, as a matterof law, may be granted;

b) Prescription has set in;

c) There are earlier similar complaints (Civil Case Nos. Q-95-22834 and Q-95-23111) filed by adifferent set of plaintiffs against a different set of defendants but which involve the same subjectmatter, cause of action and allegations of the plaintiffs, with respect to the cancellation of OCT 614and succeeding titles derived from it. Said complaints have since been dismissed by Branch 93 of the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City, the dismissal of which is the subject of a pending certiorariproceeding in the appellate court. [15]

On January 3, 2001, [16] the trial court denied respondents motion to dismiss the Second

Amended Complaint. Its motion for reconsideration was likewise denied hence respondent filed apetition for certiorari with the Court of Appeals.

The appellate court granted respondents petition for certiorari and dismissed petitionersSecond Amended Complaint for failure to state a cause of action. Hence, the instant petition raisingthe following issues:

A. THAT THE COURT OF APPEALS ERRED IN DECLARING THAT THE COMPLAINT FILED BY THEPETITIONERS WITH THE REGIONAL TRIAL COURT OF QUEZON CITY IN CIVIL CASE NO. Q-99-36483 DOES NOT STATE A VALID CAUSE OF ACTION;

B. THAT THE COURT OF APPEALS ERRED IN DECLARING THAT THE PETITIONERS ARE NOT

REAL PARTIES IN INTEREST;C. THAT THE COURT OF APPEALS ERRED IN APPLYING THE DOCTRINE OF EXHAUSTION

OF ADMINISTRATIVE REMEDIES ; and,

D. THAT THE COURT OF APPEALS ACTED WITH GRAVE ABUSE OF DISCRETION AND DENIEDPETITIONERS RIGHT TO DUE PROCESS WHEN IT DISMISSED THEIR COMPLAINT. [17]

We deny the petition.

The subject lots are part of the Piedad Estate, Quezon City, a Friar Land acquired on December 23,1903 by the Philippine Government from the Philippine Sugar Estates Development Company, Ltd.,La Sociedad Agricola de Ultramar, the British-Manila Estate Company, Ltd., and the Recoleto Orderof the Philippine Islands, as indicated in Public Act No. 1120 (Friar Lands Act) enacted on April 26,1904. [18]

After the Piedad Estate was registered in OCT No. 614 in the name of the Philippine Government in1910 under the provisions of Act 496, the area was subdivided originally into 874 lots. As a resultof subsequent surveys executed in the course of disposition, the number of lots increased to 1,305.Disposition of these lots was made by the Bureau of Lands thru sales, under the Friar Lands Act, asearly as 1910 and records show that even before the Second World War, all lots in the Piedad Estatehave been disposed of. [19] The Piedad Estate has long been segregated from the mass of the public


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domain and has become private land duly registered under the Torrens system following theprocedure for the confirmation of private lands prescribed in Act 496. Thus the lands inside thePiedad Estate are no longer lands of the public domain. [20]

One who acquires land under the Friar Lands Act, as well as his successors-in-interest, may notclaim successional rights to purchase by reason of occupation from time immemorial, as this

contravenes the historical fact that friar lands were bought by the Government of the PhilippineIslands, pursuant to an Act of Congress of the United States, approved on July 1, 1902, not fromindividual persons but from certain companies, a society and a religious order. Under the FriarLands Act, only actual settlers and occupants at the time said lands are acquired by theGovernment were given preference to lease, purchase, or acquire their holdings, in disregard of the settlement and occupation of persons before the government acquired the lands. [21]

The basic rules of proper pleading and procedure require that every pleading shall contain in amethodical and logical form, a plain, concise and direct statement of the ultimate facts on which theparty pleading relies for his claim or defense, as the case may be, omitting the statement of mereevidentiary facts. [22] And in all averments of fraud or mistake, the circumstances constituting fraudor mistake must be stated with particularity. [23]

It is axiomatic that the averments of the complaint determine the nature of the action, and

consequently, the jurisdiction of the courts. This is because the complaint must contain a concisestatement of the ultimate facts constituting the plaintiff's cause of action and must specify the relief sought. No rule is better established than that which requires the complaint to contain a statementof all the facts constituting the plaintiff's cause of action. Additionally, Section 5, Rule 8 of theRules of Court provides that in all averments of fraud or mistake, the circumstances constitutingfraud or mistake must be stated with particularity. In the case at bar, while there are allegations of fraud in the above quoted complaints, the same are not particular enough to bring the controversywithin the SEC's jurisdiction. The said allegations are not statements of ultimate facts but are mereconclusions of law.

A pleading should state the ultimate facts essential to the rights of action or defense asserted, asdistinguished from mere conclusions of fact, or conclusions of law. General allegations that acontract is valid or legal, or is just, fair and reasonable, are mere conclusions of law. Likewise,allegations that a contract is void, voidable, invalid, illegal, ultra vires, or against public policy,without stating facts showing its invalidity, are mere conclusions of law. [24]

Ultimate facts means the essential facts constituting the plaintiff's cause of action, or such facts as are so essential that they cannot be stricken out without leaving the statement of the causeof action inadequate. [25] Cause of action has been defined as an act or omission of one party in violation of the legal right or rights of the other; [26] and its essential elements are: 1) a right infavor of the plaintiff by whatever means and under whatever law it arises or is created; 2) anobligation on the part of the named defendant to respect or not to violate such right; and 3) an actor omission on the part of the named defendant violative of the right of the plaintiff or constituting abreach of the obligation of defendant to the plaintiff for which the latter may maintain an action forrecovery of damages. If these elements are not extant, the complaint becomes vulnerable to amotion to dismiss on the ground of failure to state a cause of action. [27] In the resolution of a motion

to dismiss based on failure to state a cause of action, only the facts alleged in the complaint as wellas its annexes must be considered. [28] The test in such case is whether a court can render a valid judgment on the complaint based upon the facts alleged and pursuant to the prayer therein. [29]

Corollarily, the question of whether or not a complaint states a cause of action against a defendantor the action is premature is one of law. The trial court can consider all the pleadings filed,including annexes, motions and the evidence on record. However in so doing, the trial court doesnot rule on the truth or falsity of such documents. It merely includes such documents in thehypothetical admission. Any review of a finding of lack of cause of action based on thesedocuments would not involve a calibration of the probative value of such pieces of evidence but


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would only limit itself to the inquiry of whether the law was properly applied given the facts andthese supporting documents. Therefore, what would inevitably arise from such a review are purequestions of law, and not questions of fact.

The trial court must likewise apply relevant statutes and jurisprudence in determining whether theallegations in a complaint establish a cause of action. While it focuses on the complaint, a court

clearly cannot disregard decisions material to the proper appreciation of the questions before it. Inresolving a motion to dismiss, every court must take cognizance of decisions this Court hasrendered because they are proper subjects of mandatory judicial notice. The said decisions, moreimportantly, form part of the legal system, and failure of any court to apply them shall constitute anabdication of its duty to resolve a dispute in accordance with law, and shall be a ground foradministrative action against an inferior court magistrate. [30]

Considering the foregoing, it is not difficult to see the need for particularity and incipientsubstantiation in the petitioners Second Amended Complaint.

First , their initial claim that OCT 614 of which all the other subject titles are derivatives isnull and void, has been proven wrong. As has been held in Pinlac and other cases, OCT 614 didlegally exist and was previously issued in the name of the Philippine Government in 1910 under the

provisions of Act 496.

Second , the Ad Hoc Committee of the then Ministry of Natural Resources, which was specificallytasked to investigate the historical background of the Piedad Estate, found that as early as theperiod prior to the Second World War, all lots in the Piedad Estate had already been disposed of.

Third , the Piedad Estate has been placed under the Torrens system of land registration, whichmeans that all lots therein are titled.

Fourth , as held in the Balicudiong case, one who acquires land under the Friar Lands Act, as well ashis successors-in-interest, may not claim successional rights to purchase by reason of occupationfrom time immemorial, which means that petitioners claimed actual, adverse, peaceful andcontinuous possession of the subject property is really of no moment unless it is shown that theirpredecessors-in-interest were actual settlers and occupants at the time said lands were acquired bythe Government, and whose rights were not disregarded even though they were in occupation of the same before the government acquired the land; yet, no period of time in relation to adversepossession is alleged.

Petitioners Second Amended Complaint betrays no more than an incomplete narration of factsunsupported by documentary or other exhibits; the allegations therein partake of conclusions of lawunsupported by a particular averment of circumstances that will show why or how such inferencesor conclusions were arrived at. It is replete with sweeping generalizations and inferences derivedfrom facts that are not found therein. While there are allegations of fraud upon the claim that thesubject titles were fictitious, spurious and obtained under mysterious circumstances, thesame are not specific to bring the controversy within the trial courts jurisdiction. There is no

explanation or narration of facts as would show why said titles are claimed to be fictitious orspurious, contrary to the requirement of the Rules that the circumstances constituting fraud mustbe stated with particularity; otherwise, the allegation of fraud would simply be an unfoundedconclusion of law. In the absence of specific averments, the complaint is defective, for it presentsno basis upon which the court should act, or for the defendant to meet it with an intelligent answer.

As to the second issue raised, petitioners claim that they are bona fide occupants of the subjectproperty within the contemplation of the Friar Lands Act, having allegedly been in actual, adverse,peaceful and continuous possession of the property, although it is not stated for how long and sincewhen. In their second amended complaint, they seek judgment


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(4) Declaring the plaintiffs as bona fide occupants of the property in litigation pursuant to theprovisions of the Friar Lands Act and other existing laws. (Emphasis supplied)They do not pray to be declared owners of the subject property despite their alleged adversepossession but only to be adjudged as the bona fide occupants thereof. In other words,petitioners concede the States ownership of the property.

Being so, petitioners may not be considered the real parties in interest for the purpose of maintaining the suit for cancellation of the subject titles. The Court of Appeals is correct indeclaring that only the State, through the Solicitor General, may institute such suit. Jurisprudenceon the matter has been settled and the issue need not be belabored. Thus The Court also holds that private respondents are not the proper parties to initiate the present suit.The complaint, praying as it did for the cancellation of the transfer certificates of title of petitionerson the ground that they were derived from a spurious OCT No. 4216, assailed in effect thevalidity of said title. While private respondents did not pray for the reversion of the land to thegovernment, we agree with the petitioners that the prayer in the complaint will have the sameresult of reverting the land to the government under the Regalian doctrine. Gabila vs. Barriga ruledthat only the government is entitled to this relief. The Court in that case held:The present motion to dismiss is actually predicated on Section 1(g), Rule 16 of the RevisedRules of Court, i.e., failure of the complaint to state a cause of action, for it alleges in paragraph 12

thereof that the plaintiff admits that he has no right to demand the cancellation or amendment of the defendants title, because, even if the said title were canceled or amended, the ownership of the land embraced therein, or of the portion thereof affected by the amendment, would revert tothe public domain. In his amended complaint the plaintiff makes no pretense at all that any part of the land covered by the defendants title was privately owned by him or by his predecessors-in-interest. Indeed, it is admitted therein that the said land was at all times a part of the public domain until December 18, 1964, when the government issued a title thereon in favor of defendant. Thus, if there is any person or entity to relief, it can only be the government.

In the case at bar, the plaintiffs own averments negate the existence of such right, for it wouldappear therefrom that whatever right might have been violated by the defendant belonged to thegovernment, not to the plaintiff. Plaintiff-appellant argues that although his complaint is captionedas one for cancellation of title, he has nevertheless stated therein several causes of action based onhis alleged rights of possession and ownership over the improvements, on defendant-appelleesalleged fraudulent acquisition of the land, and on the damages allegedly incurred by him (plaintiff-appellant) in relation to the improvements. These matters are merely ancillary to the central issueof whether or not defendant-appellees title should be canceled or amended, and they may notbe leaned upon in an effort to make out a cause of action in relation to the said focal issue. Indeed,the principal relief prayed for in the amended complaint is the cancellation or amendment of defendant-appellees title. [31]

Under Rule 3, Section 2 of the Rules of Court, a real party in interest is the party who stands to bebenefited or injured by the judgment in the suit, or the party entitled to the avails of the suit.Interest within the meaning of the rule means material interest, an interest in issue and to be affected by the decree, as distinguished from mere interest in the question involved, or a mereincidental interest. The interest of the party must also be personal and not one based on a desire to

vindicate the constitutional right of some third and unrelated party. Real interest, on the otherhand, means a present substantial interest, as distinguished from a mere expectancy or a future,contingent, subordinate, or consequential interest. [32]

If petitioners are to be believed, they would possess a mere inchoate interest in the propertiescovered by the subject titles, a mere expectancy conditioned upon the fact that if the questionedtitles are cancelled and the property is reverted to the State, they would probably or possibly begiven preferential treatment as qualified buyers or lessees of the property under the Friar LandsAct. But this certainly is not the interest required by law that grants them license or the personality to prosecute their case. Only to the State does the privilege belong.


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On the issue of exhaustion of administrative remedies, suffice it to state that since petitioners donot possess the necessary interest to prosecute the case for cancellation of title in the courts,neither do they have the right to pursue administrative remedies outside thereof. They are not theowners; nor are they qualified applicants therefor. It has not been shown by their complaint thatthey have previously taken steps to avail of the benefits under the Friar Lands Act, since all they

seek, should the questioned titles be nullified, is to be declared bona fide occupants of the propertycovered by the questioned titles. Neither is there any indication that they possess the qualificationsnecessary to enable them to avail of the preference granted under the Act.

Finally, there is no merit in petitioners contention that respondent belatedly filed the petition forcertiorari with the Court of Appeals, and that the appellate court gravely abused its discretion whenit entertained and resolved the same.

The Order of the trial court dated January 3, 2001 denying respondents motion to dismiss theSecond Amended Complaint was received by the respondent on January 16, 2001. Respondent fileda motion for reconsideration on January 18, 2001 which was denied on February 28, 2001.Respondent received the order denying its motion for reconsideration on March 27, 2001. On thesame day, it filed a Notice to File Petition for Certiorari. On April 2, 2001, the petition for certiorari

was filed with the Court of Appeals. Clearly, the same was timely filed hence, the appellate courtcorrectly entertained the same.

WHEREFORE, the petition is DENIED. The Decision of the Court of Appeals dated January 9, 2002in CA-G.R. SP No. 64337 dismissing petitioners Second Amended Complaint in Civil Case No. Q-99-36483 and the Resolution dated June 26, 2002 denying the motion forreconsideration, are AFFIRMED.

SO ORDERED.

Documents

Canete vs Genuino Ice